Visit Romania - but take a good guide with you to get the best out of your trip.

I think you should visit Romania. It is a country quite unlike any other. I guess it is like an awkward teenager - who after 20 years of freedom does not quite know what to do with itself.

It is trying to desperately combine more Western ideas such as a far more liberated sex scene, with hundreds of year old traditional customs of waiting until after marriage.

It is keen to have a booming tourist trade and attract the tourists away from the more tempting Bulgarian shores, where food is cheaper and the services better. The hotels like to charge increasingly Western prices for a never changing Eastern European hotel experience. The good news is there is always a price crash mid-season to try to get people to come - especially along the coast.

Even our European membership creates tension. It is great as I can see a massive improvement in the general infrastructure, but chaos as the government tries to do away with unpasterised cheese and allows in super-cheap Polish apples.

However, despite all these troubles, you will still be made to feel you are the only foreigner in the country and everyone will be keen to put on the best face of Romania. The further away from Bucharest (where we are two a penny) you are, the better the impact.

If you can visit Romania with a Romanian, then you are certain to be in for a special treat, a suddenly a whole closed network of friends and relatives in the countryside opens up and you see the real, extra-special part of Romania culture, probably along some dusty Romanian road towards some forgotten Romanian village.

If you are coming alone - to visit Romania and see it at its fullest, take the time to read your lonely planet or rough guide to Romania, or you will miss so much as Romanians - tired of being invaded from every side - seem to have come up with the strategy of using minimal road signs, using the logic if you don't know where it is, then clearly it is not for you.

If you are coming to visit friends in Romania, you should come weighed down with coffee (from poundland is fine!) and quality items, as this is the one thing you will not find here.

I am confident that if you visit Romania, you will want to come again and again, and experience this fabulous country in all four seasons, as the beauty of Romania is it is so different in each season. It gets so cold; the sea freezes over to a distance of 200 meters out. It gets so hot in other seasons and the sand reaches 45C.

The Romanians you meet in Romania are completely different to Romanians back home. The ones you meet abroad are unhappy, as they need intense levels of heat and sunshine to thrive - rather like tropical orchids. If you return them to their native soil - watch them bloom.

Likewise the Brits and Americans abroad seem to really disappoint and can be skirted past if you want to see real Romania. If you just want copious drinking buddies - then they are a perfect reason to visit Romania.

Throughout this site, I have added lots of cool places to visit and things to see. My new photo gallery section seems to have become an instant hit - a perfect way to prepare for you to prepare for your trip.

Tell me more about your experiences of visiting Romania. What information have I missed?

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